Rated Battlegrounds Guide

For much of WoW’s history, the only way to get the best PvP gear and impressive ratings was to participate in Arenas. Many players enjoy the arena style of PvP, but may also find an endless succession of small death matches in the limited environment of a fighting pit to be tedious in the extreme, while still enjoying PvP. Now, the choice between objectives based battlegrounds and good PvP gear is no longer a problem for endgame players, as this WoW rated battlegrounds guide reveals.

Rated battlegrounds, introduced with Cataclysm, give players a chance to play their favorite objectives based battlegrounds, earn ratings exactly like Arena players can, gain the recently restored PvP titles (up to Grand Marshal for the Alliance and High Warlord for the Horde), and, most importantly, earn Conquest Points which can be spent for Arena-grade PvP gear.

These battlegrounds, naturally, are not simply the familiar battlegrounds – Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and so on – with ratings and points added in. Instead, there is a special set of rules and restrictions which applies to the rated battleground scene, including a minimum level and the banning of many items crafted by various professions. It is also necessary to enter the rated battleground as a premade group.

The basic restrictions of rated battlegrounds in WoW

Rated battlegrounds take place on ordinary battleground maps and have the same objectives as the regular battleground does. For example, victory in Warsong Gulch is achieved by capturing three flags, or, in case less flags than three have been captured by the end of the time limit, the most flags, or the most recent flag capture if both teams got 1 or 2 flags. Victory in Arathi Basin is still gained by collecting points, earned from controlling the flags at the Stables, Blacksmith, Gold Mine, Lumber Mill, and Farm.

However, only 10 versus 10 and 15 versus 15 battlegrounds are used for rated battlegrounds. There were originally plans for 25 versus 25 battlegrounds to be used as well, but the designers believed that the task of coordinating 25 people in a rated battleground would be too difficult. Also, the fact that so many people are involved raises the chances of one of them “dropping” when the group is queued, and spoiling the battleground for the rest.

The 10v10 and 15v15 brackets (as they are officially known) rotate weekly. The in-game calendar shows which bracket is available in the current week, as long as the “battleground holiday filter” is activated in the calendar options. The battleground itself is selected randomly from the appropriate type of battlegrounds (10v10 or 15v15). Since there are not many battlegrounds of each type, the variety is limited, but it still gives you a few options.

The 10v10 rated battlegrounds currently available include:

  • Warsong Gulch – the classic capture the flag game, in which the objective is to capture three flags before the other team does.
  • The Battle for Gilneas – a 10v10 modification of Arathi Basin on a rather Gothic-looking Gilnean landscape, the Battle for Gilneas battleground requires players to control three resource nodes – the Lighthouse, the Waterworks, and the Mines – in order to accumulate victory points and, ultimately, win.
  • Twin Peaks – another 10v10 battleground based on a “capture the flag” scenario. This fight takes place in a river valley, with aerie like bases perched on the mountains on either side.

    • The 15v15 rated battleground are also three in number, and include:

  • Eye of the Storm – an intriguing otherworldly battleground which combines four bases – which can be held for points – and the capture of a centrally located flag for additional points. Generally speaking, holding three bases and ignoring the flag is a better strategy than holding two and taking the flag.
  • Strand of the Ancients – another exciting 15v15 battleground in which you can drive a tank-like Demolisher to blow up gates to reach the Titan Relic Chamber which is the battleground’s objective, or operate missile turrets at the gates as a defender to try to stop them.
  • Arathi Basin – another classic battleground, in which two teams struggle to control five resource nodes: the Stables, Blacksmith, Gold Mine, Lumber Mill, and Farm. These bases generate victory points over time, and the first team to reach 1,600 points wins. The more bases you control, the faster points accumulate, but the harder it becomes to defend all of them from the enemy.

Joining a rated battleground in WoW

You cannot simply queue up for a rated battleground at any level, and without being part of a group. Only a premade raid group can queue up for a rated battleground; however, you can request to join any raid group which is forming, and do not need to be part of the guild organizing the raid or any other organization (such as an arena team). However, as described below, there are some benefits for those who choose to join a rated battleground group that is made up mostly of guild members.

Only level 85 characters can participate in rated battlegrounds, so you will need to level your character to the maximum level before they can join. There are no limits on the gear you can wear, although of course, the better your gear, the higher the chance is that you will do well in the match, also assuming some measure of skill.

Guilds who form rated battleground raids will receive certain benefits for doing so. At least 80% of the raid must be made up of guild members – in short, 8 out of the 10 players in a 10v10 battleground, or 12 out of 15 players in a 15v15 battleground, must be “guildies” to gain these benefits. Carrying out a rated battleground with a “guild raid” of this type will get experience for your guild, meaning that PvP guilds can now level up their guild by participating in rated battlegrounds.

Rated Battleground Rating and Match Making Value (MMV)

Rated Battleground Rating is an individual character’s rating in the battlegrounds, which increases when you participate in rated battlegrounds on the winning side. This score starts out at zero and builds up from there over the course of your Rated Battlegrounds career.

Match Making Value (MMV) is a calculated measure of your individual skill, where your Rated Battleground Rating is an overall measure of your success as part of a team. The Match Making Value you have cannot be seen by you or anyone else, and is simply a measure used to calculate the overall MMV for your group, which is then used to match you against teams with a similar MMV. MMV goes down after a lost game and goes up after a victory by a fixed amount.

Rated Battleground Rating and MMV interact at a fundamental level – if you lose a match and your MMV is higher than your Rated Battleground Rating, then you will not lose any rating, simply not gaining any more instead. If you lose a match and your MMV is lower than your Rated Battleground Rating, then you will lose some rating.

It is not often that this occurs, however. If you do lose rating, then it means you seriously need to improve your gear and spell rotation, because you are truly at the bottom of your individual game! However, the sword cuts both ways, so to speak. If your Rated Battleground Rating grows too far beyond your MMV, you will only earn rating very slowly until your MMV catches up to your RBR.

Earning Conquest Points and Titles

When you participate in a winning rated battleground, your character will earn Conquest Points. The number you can get at maximum – the weekly “cap” is calculated based on your success from the previous week, with a “week” in the rated battlegrounds running from Tuesday to Tuesday. Conquest Points can be spent on a wide range of epic gear rewards, including items for all classes with extremely good PvP stats, mostly equal to Arena gear.

You can also earn PvP titles by raising your Rated Battleground Rating to a specific level. The levels and titles they give are (with Alliance titles listed first, Horde second):

  • 1100 Rating – Private or Scout
  • 1200 Rating – Corporal or Grunt
  • 1300 Rating – Sergeant (both sides)
  • 1400 Rating – Master Sergeant or Senior Sergeant
  • 1500 Rating – Sergeant Major or First Sergeant
  • 1600 Rating – Knight or Stone Guard
  • 1700 Rating – Knight Lieutenant or Blood Guard
  • 1800 Rating – Knight Captain or Legionairre
  • 1900 Rating – Knight Champion or Centurion
  • 2000 Rating – Lieutenant Commander or Champion
  • 2100 Rating – Commander or Lieutenant General
  • 2200 Rating – Marshal or General
  • 2300 Rating – Field Marshal or Warlord
  • 2400 Rating – Grand Marshal or High Warlord

    • Additionally, there are a number of achievements for each faction which are earned by winning certain numbers of rated battlegrounds (1, 60, 100, etc.), but which do not award titles, only achievement points.

    The Conquest Point cap and Honor Points

    After the first few weeks of the new rated battleground system, Blizzard realized that there was no incentive for players to continue playing in the battlegrounds after they had reached their Conquest Point cap for the week.

    Although some players would naturally keep playing for the challenge and fun, many would not, which would reduce the number of players in the pool after mid-week (or however long it took most players to reach their Conquest cap), and rated battleground would get long queues, or simply not run at all after a while.

    To rectify this, Blizzard has introduced a new system. When your character reaches their Conquest cap, they will now begin to earn Honor Points instead, and since there is no cap on the amount of honor you can earn in a week, this will give people an incentive to continue playing the rated battlegrounds. This makes for a livelier PvP scene all round, with more teams and varied styles, and helps to keep the battlegrounds active for everyone.

    Restricted items in rated battlegrounds

    The same restrictions apply to consumables and engineering items as in Arenas. In short, all consumable items except for bandages and conjured mana drink or conjured food, and many engineering items are out and out banned (fail to work), while others have specific uses removed as soon as you enter the rated battleground. For example, all engineering goggles have their stealth detection removed in rated battlegrounds exactly as is the case with arenas. You will need to check on a case by case basis to see if specific items can be used in the battleground.